Many apartment complexes, dormitories, condominiums, businesses, and other buildings have security systems installed whereby a person has to contact an attendant or security guard to gain entrance. Many times the attendant or security guard presses a release button and the door is unlocked. Once the door closes, it remains locked until the attendant or security guard releases it again. In other words, this door closes or locks automatically, whether a mechanical or an electrical means.
In an emergency situation, which requires the presence of a law enforcement officer, fire fighters, medical personnel or other first responder, these systems present great problems. The first law enforcement officer to arrive is usually allowed entry. However, due to the automatic closing or locking of the door, subsequent officers or first responders must contact the attendant or security guard to gain entrance to the building. This process requires wasted use of valuable time in an emergency situation. A device that makes entry into the building more efficient is clearly a useful invention.
Moreover, law enforcement officers use rocks, carpets, sticks, bricks or other readily available items to prop the door open for later arriving officers. However, these items are a problem in that a passerby does not realize that these items are intended to be there for safety reasons and remove the items. Thus, later arriving agents must still contact the attendant or security guard to gain access to the building. A device, which keeps the door open and that is not easily removed by unauthorized individuals, is clearly a useful invention.
Such a device must be easy to carry and use. The other requirements for this device include strength and durability. The clear conflicts of the requirements cause great difficulty in forming such a device.
Such a device can permit first responders to reach a disaster much more efficiently, due to getting there in a more timely fashion. Such efficiency inherently leads to a saving of time, and possibly lives of people the first responders are trying to help.
While it is desirable, to make such a device to be easily attachable to the door desired to remain open, and difficult to remove, there will come a time when it is desired to remove the device. At that time, it is desired to have a deliberate, controlled process for removing such a device from the door, at the appropriate time. These desirable features conflict and make such a device difficult to accomplish.